Totally frustrated and fed up!!!!!!

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Hi all
Well I'm feeling I've reached rock bottom!
As per previous messages, I have a developing backhand and forehand when practising but
as shown up last week, my technique totally falls apart in a match.
I'm assuming I just need more more practise......but right now, I m just totally pi..ed off!
Sorry for rant
A
 
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Hey Andy, cheer up, and don't give up, man.
Could it be, that you were a bit too focused on winning your match?

Don't forget. TT is also about fun not only winning.

Im sure you're right but when playing a team match, how do you not focus on winning?
After just reviewed the videos, I remembered some of the thoughts I was having throughout the genes and a main
one was to keep the ball on the table....any focus on technique was non-existent.

Should I go 'totally Chinese methodology' and avoid all matches for the first year?
A
 
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I feel your agony Andy! No worries, we all rant!
When you have a bad day, go grab a beer, see a movie or rant on a TT forum! Anything that helps.
Take a step back. Wach your opponent in some other match. Look at how he/she moves. Study the patterns of the bodylanguage.
Also..
If you bring your best game and get knocked down anyway, grab that blade and hold it up like HE-MAN and shout: I HAVE THE POWER! (That gets most people in a good mood, even yourself sometimes.)
 
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Im sure you're right but when playing a team match, how do you not focus on winning?
After just reviewed the videos, I remembered some of the thoughts I was having throughout the genes and a main
one was to keep the ball on the table....any focus on technique was non-existent.

Should I go 'totally Chinese methodology' and avoid all matches for the first year?
A

I guess me and many others know exactly that feeling.
You wrote a couple of very good things here.
Well the thing is, if you don't participate at competitive matches, on the one side you would allow you're technique to become a little more solid which would be easier to call up during matches.
But that nervousness would still appear in your first matches then.
Plus i also think getting used to competitive play can help you detect the things / strokes that need more practice.

I guess you probably also didn't want to disappoint your teammates, but they should know how long you have been playing and totally keep pressure away from you.

We have two guys at our club who also just started last year. I keep telling them to focus on trying to play EACH and EVERY Ball as good as possible and not to pay too much attention to the score...

Of course nobody likes losing, but actually you NEVER lose.
Sometimes you win and sometimes you.... learn... ;)
I guess your teammates should rather be happy that you're around and participating instead of having high hopes that you score in your very first matches and put that pressure on you...

I rather lose a match knowing a gave my very best, than having an 2 hour push duell, just to win...

Well, that's how i was taught by my coaches....

So, heads up, Sir. Your next matches are gonna be better...

P.S. don't take sebas comment seriously. I bet he's just teasing. ;)
 
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Im sure you're right but when playing a team match, how do you not focus on winning?
After just reviewed the videos, I remembered some of the thoughts I was having throughout the genes and a main
one was to keep the ball on the table....any focus on technique was non-existent.

Should I go 'totally Chinese methodology' and avoid all matches for the first year?
A

You have 2.5 years left. You can do it for 6 months and see if it helps but while I may be wrong, my experience is that the true practical learning comes when you make your practice more similar to matches. You haven't hit that stage yet, but part of the problem is that there is a difference between what wins matches and what you think wins matches. You still try to hit the ball as hard as you can rather than trying to just give the ball spin.

I like to win when my opponent can comfortably get his racket on all my shots and still not put them on the table consistently enough to win. It's the funniest thing in the world. It happens when you spin the ball.
 
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I guess me and many others know exactly that feeling.
You wrote a couple of very good things here.
Well the thing is, if you don't participate at competitive matches, on the one side you would allow you're technique to become a little more solid which would be easier to call up during matches.
But that nervousness would still appear in your first matches then.
Plus i also think getting used to competitive play can help you detect the things / strokes that need more practice.

I guess you probably also didn't want to disappoint your teammates, but they should know how long you have been playing and totally keep pressure away from you.

We have two guys at our club who also just started last year. I keep telling them to focus on trying to play EACH and EVERY Ball as good as possible and not to pay too much attention to the score...

Of course nobody likes losing, but actually you NEVER lose.
Sometimes you win and sometimes you.... learn... ;)
I guess your teammates should rather be happy that you're around and participating instead of having high hopes that you score in your very first matches and put that pressure on you...

I rather lose a match knowing a gave my very best, than having an 2 hour push duell, just to win...

Well, that's how i was taught by my coaches....

So, heads up, Sir. Your next matches are gonna be better...

P.S. don't take sebas comment seriously. I bet he's just teasing. ;)

Thanks, SugaD. Thanks again, SugaD. The above things are what I have tried to tell Andy. Especially the part that if his teammates practice, they should know what stage he is at. The problem sometimes though is that people who have not significantly improved do not know what it takes to improve. So they may tell him to keep the ball on the table when he is at the stage where he needs to learn to do his strokes.

I wish Andy had a coach around him like me, Der-Echte or Carl who learned to get better mostly as an adult - in fact, one reason I got better was that I was blessed to work with that kind of coach and still do - many things I write are parroted from him and he is the one coach who consistently improves adult players.

Our perspective is a little different because we were conscious of what was happening during the years we improved. Most people who improved as kids don't really know what it was like because they were often too young to remember what really happened, too talented/driven as they were survivors of the fittest and were almost always coached to play the right way from the start, and therefore had all the answers being given to them without trying to fix really bad things. When you have flaws in your game like mine and you are fighting to beat all kinds of players, you learn a lot pretty quickly that you can pass on to other adults. Most players who got good as kids focus on the things that will get you to a very high level, which may not be the things an adult needs to play better.
 
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I wold not stop competing for a year... Coping with pressure, maintain always a positive attitude, etc, etc are skills that you can only gain during competition.

For a while I was very focus on the result. When I change my focus to the next point only my game evolved a bit. Is not that I'm were I want to be, but as somebody else suggested here : it is a process you must enjoy...

Good luck!!!




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Im sure you're right but when playing a team match, how do you not focus on winning?

Andy, the answer was given by USD Carl to you, but you might not have recognized the value of his answer.....

"NO, you don't understand! If you can't remember which side of your shoes you left your umbrella on, you need to go back and practice moment by moment awareness!"

I.s.o. focussing on winning, you should have left the table with either knowledge of what went wrong and knowing what you need to train on or at least knowing what you need to ask your coach or forummembers. For example during the match you might have observed that your counterdrive is ok against topspin and dead balls but not ok against backspin. This observation would set the path forward for your training.

A method to support this kind of learningcurve, is writing a diary for yourself, with all kind of details that you observed during training or matches (supplemented with tips from websites/forums). This tip was actually supported by Larry Hodges as well ("you should write a table tennis book about yourself). I started doing this about 1.5 year ago and already wrote down 557 valuable tips about my game, which I read regularly, The value of reading this in not only to stay focussed on your development process but also provides some mental support.

I find it quite relieving to write off my emotions after a competitionmatch by means of these notes. Any negative emotions can now easily be transferred to those "learning lessons".

Furthermore based on these notes you can write and adapt a personal trainingplan for short and medium timespan.

Hope this is helpfull for you.
 
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After just reviewed the videos, I remembered some of the thoughts I was having throughout the genes and a main
one was to keep the ball on the table....any focus on technique was non-existent

Perhaps not the level you have in mind, but from above quote you'll see Andy took some perception with him fom the table. My experience is that it helps to start writing down these perceptions. The writing process itself will support you in enhancing these thought processes.
Though what perhaps now seems like simple thoughts/experiences will soon expand to even more valuable notes.


I personally didn't write down notes in the first 3 years of my current 5 year table tennis adventure but looking back I regret not having started with it right away. Just my 2c.
 
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Its a process man. If it were that easy, everyone would be great at tt. It sounds like you know what went wrong and you have ideas on how to fix it, so why be frustrated? Not getting results fast enough does not mean you suck, it only means you've underestimated the effort required. Just pace yourself, be patient yet smart and chip away at it, you will 100% get there.

EDIT: this is for all you tt players down in the slumps
https://ithemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/the-iceberg-of-success.jpg
 
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I like the last two posts as well. TT always looks much simpler to the observer than it actually is. Even experienced players are guilty of watching higher level players and thinking that they can easily get to their level. What you can't see when watching high level players is the years of specialized development that went into their processes. Learning is a physical activity and without putting in the hours and getting the right experiences, our bodies can't build the systems to support high level table tennis.

Because we are used to thinking sometimes that all we have to do is copy someone to learn, we think the copying is simple. It is a much more complicated process that can be simplified if you know what you are doing, but still remains a process.
 
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Hey, I think all the submissions so far are good ones. I will add a few comments myself. But not too many. Most of the important stuff is covered.

P.S. don't take sebas comment seriously. I bet he's just teasing. ;)

Except the dancing naked part!

No, the first thing to understand is that having those matches that you should win and end up losing and having those matches where you just play like shyte under your belt, in the long run, all help to increase your match play experience so that, at a certain point you pull off the matches you should have lost instead of the other way around. To stop playing matches would only cause part of your TT development to be delayed. There are plenty of players with good technique and bad game strategy. That stuff should develop as you put yourself in those situations more and more.

In match play, at a certain point you want to be able to shut off the analytical process and just focus on going for your shots. You may not be there yet. But think of matches as practice and play every point as though nothing else exists but that point. In other words, regardless of the score you could play each point as though the score is 5-5 or even 9-9 regardless of the actual score.

Here is the video I keep posting on this subject of training and the random element. It has important information for your development.


If you have not watched this video yet, watch it. If you have, watch it again.

Then choose someone you know as a training partner and start doing game simulation drills. Do a couple of hours a week of game simulation drills.

I will give you two drills to practice. Do both.

Drill 1:

a) Server serves short backspin
b) receiver pushes long
c) server tries to loop vs the long push
d) open play

Side note: with this drill, you can start with the person pushing to a particular spot like the middle of the table or wide FH or BH. In the end it should progress to where the long push placement is totally random.

Second game simulation drill:

Players alternate 2 serves each and play exactly like a match without counting points. A serve that misses the table should be played as a net so the receiver gets the opportunity to receive 2 serves that are in play.

In this drill, try to be creative. Try things you may not try in a match. Work on things.

You probably should find as many different training partners to do game simulation drills with as possible. There are so many more drills. Start with those two.

If you don't incorporate any training that duplicates match scenarios, it is very hard to improve your match play at least until your technique gets vastly better. But then your technique will still be way better than your game skills.

All that being said, remember, as someone else said in this thread, this should at least in part be about having fun. Try to find the fun in play. Even when you lose.

Yoga Sutra 1:12 says "abhyasa vairagya tan nirodhah". That means, practice without attachment to the results is what gets you the results.

Sorry to go eastern on you. But practice, and don't worry about the progress. It comes in strange jumps. And it is supposed to. Don't worry about the points where you plateau for a while or even when you feel like you have gone backwards. Those periods actually help set the stage for the next jump in level.


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Everyone,

For context: Andy has set a goal of becoming a ranked player in England in 3 years. He has ankylosing spondylitis. He has only been playing for 6 months. He has 3 very good coaches so let's give him advice but not lose sleep over whether he takes it or not.

His blog is here:
https://andycouchmantabletennis.wordpress.com/

His youtube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkuqKAxNSxrLCS5GadRgfrA

You can see the matches and other videos of his practice.

He is raising money for his charity as well.

https://www.justgiving.com/Andrew-Couchman-table-tennis/

Whether you like or laugh at his table tennis, please support him. Thanks.
 
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You will always hit plateaus. You may even regress a bit before getting better. Limitations based on physical issues like injuries are especially frustrating, though.

Really, just remember, it is fun to hit the ball. It really is as simple as that.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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One thing to understand about plateaus. They happen for a reason. When you are in a plateau stage, what is happening is that during the plateau the technique you have been developing gets sured up and solidifies so that it becomes ready for the next jump in level. There are points where you make a jump and your level is a bit better than where you are ready to be. Then you plateau and your technique catches up and passes that level. Then you make another jump. And on and on. Jumps are where your brain and your nervous system catch up to what your body can do. Plateaus are where your body needs to catch up to what your brain and nervous system have become able to handle. It is an interesting process.


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